The next time John Williams gets a call to renovate a home in Augusta's Hill area, the owner of Summerville Renovation Co. likely will have more work on his hands.
A new rule that became effective Thursday, Earth Day, requires a stricter testing regimen and remodeling standards for any home interior project in homes built before 1978.
The regulation, which was instituted by the Environmental Protection Agency, aims at protecting more people from the harmful effects of lead -- especially infants, young children and pregnant women, who are particularly susceptible to the harmful effects of the toxin.
The new requirements mean added costs to remodelers, contractors, window installers, electricians and anyone else who works in older homes. Extra expenses mainly come from new testing and safety equipment, in addition to new bookkeeping obligations.
Those costs likely will be passed to customers, and could possibly be a deterrent to remodeling, Williams said.
"It's going to make it more expensive, and you have to add that to the estimate," said Williams, who added that nearly all of the homes he works on were built before 1978. "It's going to add to the cost of business."
Under the new rule, companies and workers who complete such work must take a class to be certified.
That has led to a flurry of requests for courses in the past month from instructors such as Mark Hartz, the vice president and owner of Alternative Construction & Environmental Solutions Inc. in Augusta.
Hartz said he began offering classes in November that drew fewer than 10 people. For the past month, he has been teaching three or four classes a week that max out at 30 people. And he's still scheduling classes across Georgia and South Carolina with the deadline having passed.
On Thursday, he led a class of 25 people at Enterprise Mill in Augusta.
At least 1,500 people have been trained in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina in just the past three weeks, Hartz said. But thousands more still have to comply with the rule, he estimated.
Children with high levels of lead in their bodies can have problems such as slowed growth, behavior and learning problems, and headaches, according to the EPA.
The EPA estimates the new rules will add between $6 and $167 to a remodeling job, but Hartz said the costs will probably be closer to between $300 and $500.
Between 25 percent and 30 percent of the work completed by Augusta Remodeling and Construction Co. will be affected by the change, said CEO Richard Johnson.
"Our whole process will change as far as how we do the work and all the paperwork that is required for the testing," he said. "It's going to put a lot more burden on the contractor to do so."
Johnson said the size and intensity of a job that involves lead paint would determine whether his company decides to take up a project.
"We may choose not to even do the work based on what it will take to do the work under the guidelines and standards we are required to follow," he said. "Each job we will have to evaluate whether it's worth the time."
People who renovate their own homes do not fall under the rule, but those who work on a rental property they own are not exempt.
Records of any work must be kept for three years, and occupants must be informed about the dangers of lead.
"(It) is just going to be a new era. Everyone's got to do the change, and everyone's got to change a lot of ways they do a new job," said Greg Bowles, the owner and vice president of Bowles Construction and the chairman of the education committee for the Builders Association of Metro Augusta Inc. "Hopefully everyone will adapt to it."
Everyone wishing to cut their costs in half will have to do their own repairs, or at least supervise the job done by the people they hire to "help" them. The landlords will be hit hardest and the costs will be passed on to the renters.
Well, Bowles doesnt have to worry, all they want to do is insurance work. Dont call them if you want some remodeling done. And disregard thier website, they are supposedly in the process of updating it.
More costs passed on to consumers by unelected bureaucrats making "laws." I can't wait for the government to take over health care.
Cliff, I went to Columbia, SC to be certified Wednesday and the new law is very clear. If you pay someone they have to be certified. You as a homeowner doing the work yourself are exempt. As a certified renovator I can now certify my employees to do the work but I am required to be at the start and the end of each job. I will now pay the money for my crew leader to take the course so I do not have to go at the start or end. The cost in window replacement may not impact the cost to the customer very much but it will in interior painting and very much so on the painting of wood houses on the exterior. You also have to tell the customer that they cannot come into a room that you are working on-Can you see them them obeying you. I do not know how the enforcement of all the weekend painters, individual pick up truck operators without the proper papers will be enforced but I can tell you this, I think it will be contractor enforced because if I loose a job to someone who is not certified I will immediately call the building inspection department to see if there is a permit and the EPA to tell them of the offender. You will be able to go on line and see who is certified. My feeling is that if I have to do the work then so should they. What I see happening is a EPA inspector going to the permit office and seeing what permits were taken out for a company and for what kind of work and then calling the company and asking to see the files on all those customers. If the paper work is not there then the fine is $37500.00 for each occurance or jail time. That is why I will keep all my files in red folders for those types of jobs. This will be a boom for attorneys because if a company works on a home built before 1978 and there is a dispute then the first thing the attorney will ask for is the EPA lead papers. If you don't have, you have lost your defense-EPA fine or give the customer what they want. The opt out option that would give the customer a choice to use EPA standards or not has been removed because the attorneys and EPA knew what would happen. People would opt out so they would not have to pay the extra charges. I got my first EPA lead notice signed yesterday. I als enclose a copy of my certification in all the paperwork I am required to leave with the customer.
Does anyone else notice that when there aren't enough real jobs, the government has to create new requirements for private business, and fluffed up government positions? This is just more oversight that is a waste of time and tax payer money. What I invision is a lot of condemned property. Also, I think the landlords will be dumping the properties! Renters will not be able to find affordable housing. What a stupid law!
The government will never take over healthcare, it would put too many attorneys, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies out of business. We need to keep jobs in the US, and not overseas. We need the government to stay out of our businesses. Manufacturing jobs are leaving because with all of the regulations, they cannot compete.
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